Axel
by Countess of Ole
Summary: Aaron Faifax was just a smalltime hacker who went by the online name of Axel. This is his story, and that of his crewmates on the Vigilant. Reviews are very appreciated!
1. The Meeting

**Disclaimer:** I don't claim ownership over any of the characters ('cept Axel's mom and Virulanna). They all belong to the Wachowski brother and Warner Bros. yadda yadda...

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"Aaron? Aaron Fairfax! Get down here!" 

The muffled thumps of sneakers descending carpeted stairs and then Margaret Fairfax's son appeared at the doorway. "Yeah, mom?"

"What were you doing up there? I called you down a half an hour ago."

"Oh, did you?" the young man furrowed his brow thoughtfully. "I guess I didn't hear you."

The older woman raised an eyebrow in amused unbelief, "You said you'd be down in a minute."

"Oh…" he looked down at the floor, beaten. "I guess I just forgot then."

"Yeah, you bet you forgot." She thwapped him playfully with a dishtowel. "You forgot to the point that your noodles are now a congealed mass covered in sauce," she vaguely waved an arm toward a plate of very cold spaghetti. "And I've already done the dishes, so if you think I'm cleaning that plate up once you're done, you're dreamin'." She gave him a half smirk and waited for a response.

Aaron hung his head in mock shame and put on a phony accent. "I am ever so sorry, my lady. Whatever can I do to make up for this transgression?"

Margaret threw her head back and barked laughter, "Well, you can start by massaging my feet when you're done eating," she said, half-sarcastically.

"Now you're the one who's dreaming, mom." He walked up behind her, threw an arm around her and kissed her cheek, "But I love ya anyway."

"Yeah, well…" Margaret walked toward the living room, "Just don't forget to clean up your plate when you're done."

"I won't."

A half an hour later, Aaron was back in his cramped, untidy room, staring directly at its only source of light: the computer monitor. He'd just logged back on and almost immediately a small message box appeared in the upper-left corner:

**Vector:**Hey, Axel. So, remember what I was talking about before?

Aaron clicked on the message box and started typing, eagerly.

**Axel555: **Yeah

**Vector:** And?

**Axel555:** And what?

**Vector: **Are you in or out?

**Axel555: **I dunno… I'm gonna have to think on this one.

**Vector:** We don't have time for you to think.

**Axel555:** We?

**Vector:** Yes

**Axel555: **Who else is involved?

**Vector: **Soren for sure. Maybe Niobe too.

**Axel555:** Those are some big names.

**Vector: **You know it. Are you in?

**Axel555:** How can I say no to that?

**Vector:** They want to meet you first.

**Axel555:** Me?

**Vector:** yes

**Axel555: **in person?

**Vector:** Yes.

**Axel555: **Isn't that a little risky? I mean, especially with what we're about to do?

**Vector: **Not if we do it right.

**Axel555:** Where? When?

**Vector:** At the flaming phoenix, you know the place?

**Axel555:** yeah. When?

**Vector: **As soon as you possibly can

**Axel555: **How will I recognize you?

**Vector: **You won't need to.

**User Vector has signed off**

Aaron just sat there and stared at the screen for a few moments. What exactly had he just gotten himself into? He understood the plan, and he knew full well he could do what they were asking of him—he'd done it before—but suddenly this thing was looking way bigger than he thought it was. Soren? Niobe? Those were big names in the world of hacking. Very _wanted_ names. He swallowed hard before realizing that they were probably waiting for him right now. Quickly snatching up his wallet and car keys, he scrambled out of his room and towards the front door.

"I'm going out, Mom!" he called on his way.

The Flaming Phoenix was loud and _very_ crowded. Aaron couldn't imagine that two big hackers would even come to such a place, much less want to meet here, especially considering what they were discussing. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the crowd, looking for anyone that might be who he was looking for, finally he gave up and shrugged his arms in frustration. This was a bad idea. He had no idea what any of them looked like, and he knew there was no way they could know what he looked like. No one appeared to be recognizing him.

He was about to turn around to wait at the bar when a large hand dropped down on his shoulder, making him jump nervously and whirl around, ready for a fight. The black man behind him was enormous. Probably at least a whole foot taller than Aaron, and built like an ox. The man was dressed entirely in black and despite the dark interior of the Flaming Phoenix, he was wearing shades. Aaron's muscles tensed, and he hoped that this man didn't want a fight. He doubted he'd stand a chance against such a formidable foe. Instead, the man said in a deep voice, "Axel?"

"Who wants to know?" Aaron replied warily.

"Vector," came the simple reply, "And while I appreciate your discretion, I _know_ you're Axel. Come with me. Soren and Niobe are waiting."

With that, the man turned and walked away from him. Aaron quickly took up stride beside him. "So what's going on here? I thought this was just a simple job"

"It is. Your part is anyway. This isn't about that," Vector said, not breaking stride.

"It's not?" Aaron stopped for a moment, thinking, what else would Soren and Niobe want with him. Vector continued on without hesitation. "Then what's it about?"

"You'll see," said Vector, still walking.

Eventually they broke free of the main crowd and Vector led Aaron to a table where two people were sitting with expressionless faces. One was an African-American woman with her hair done up in a series of tight knots around her head. She, like Vector, was also wearing shades despite the dim interior. The bald man sitting across from her was not. Somehow, being able to see the man's eyes was comforting to Aaron. He liked being able to read the people he talked to, and it was exceptionally hard to do that when he couldn't see their eyes. They both shifted their gazes towards him as he and Vector approached, faces remaining the same.

The man spoke first, "You must be Axel," he used his hand to indicate the seat next to him. "Please." Aaron, responding to his online persona as though it were the name he was christened with, sat down wordlessly beside the bald man lost in confusion.

"I'm Soren," introduced the man, "and this is Niobe," he said, indicating the woman sitting across from him.

There was a moment of silence and Aaron could feel the eyes of the two greater hackers examining him, measuring him up. Finally he couldn't take it anymore and burst out, "What's going on here? What's this about?"

Soren smiled, "This is about you."

Aaron drew his eyebrows together. For a moment he couldn't have said anything even if he wanted to, then, "What??"

"Your interest in computers goes beyond just hacking," said Soren. "You're looking for something. You have been for quite some time now. Even if you don't realize it," he paused for a moment, staring intently at Aaron. "Even if you don't know what you're looking for, you keep looking?"

"I don't understand…" Aaron shook his head. "What's going on here?"

"You keep looking because you know something is wrong, but you don't know what." Soren slipped a hand into one of the pockets of his overcoat and felt for something.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Aaron interjected.

"I understand your confusion," said Soren, withdrawing his hand from the pocket, holding something. "And that is why the decision must be yours and yours alone."

"What decision?" Aaron inquired, glancing at Soren's hand, curious to what he was holding.

"Do you want answers?" Niobe said, speaking for the first time.

"Yes," he admitted.

She slipped a piece of paper to him across the table. A time and place were neatly written upon it. "Then you'll be there tomorrow at the time specified. And you'll be alone."

Soren put the hand holding the object on the table in front of Aaron and revealed it to be a cell phone as he drew his hand away. "Keep that with you, Axel," he said softly. "Now that we've contacted you, they'll be looking for you."

Aaron placed his hand on the phone and looked at Soren in confusion, "Who?"

"And don't trust anyone," said Niobe without expression. "Not even your mother."

Aaron shifted his glance to her, "Wha…?"

"Wake up, Axel," Soren said abruptly.

Shaking his head in confusion, Aaron could vaguely hear a distant voice, calling his name.

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Author's Note: I'm no expert on The Matrix, particularly when it comes to the sequels and all that, so if I err anywhere in this fic and it turns out to be inconsistant with any of the movies or games, forgive me, try to ignore it, and just enjoy the story for what it is. Meanwhile, I will try to remain consistant with the known storyline. ;-) 


	2. The Agent

"Aaron, wake up! Wake up! Aaron!! Can you hear me? WAKE UP!!"

The distant voice suddenly became the only thing Aaron could hear. He jolted awake in his bed, only vaguely aware that someone was shaking him. He brought his hands up to his eyes and rubbed them, shaking off the groggy tendrils of disorientation that still gripped him. He lowered his hands and looked around. His mother was standing by his bed, looking down at him in concern, and he wondered vaguely why she'd deemed it necessary to personally wake him up this morning. She'd stopped speaking when he woke up, but he knew it was her voice he'd heard.

"Oh thank God you're awake. Are you all right?" she asked, worry tugging at the edge of her voice.

Aaron took a deep breath, still trying to clear his head. "Yeah," he said finally, "why?"

"Then did you miss your alarm?" she inquired, this time a bit reproachfully.

This prompted Aaron to look at his clock for the first time since waking. **9****:51** it read. He cursed in a hushed voice and swung his legs quickly out of bed, running a hand shakily through his hair. Work started at ten, and with traffic the way it was, it normally took him at least a half hour to get there. And he still had to get dressed.

"I tried calling you a few times when I didn't see you up and about, but you wouldn't answer. When I finally came up here it took me at least five minutes to even get you to twitch. Are you sure you're okay, Aaron?"

"I'm fine, mom," he said, getting out of bed and going to his closet, pulling out clothes at random to wear, "I guess it was just a late night last night. That's all."

She scrutinized his face to see if he really meant it, but the trouble was that _he_ didn't even know if he meant it. Much of last night was a blank in his mind. Not the sort of blurry half-memories of drunkenness, but a complete blank. He didn't even remember coming home. Whatever she saw in his eyes must have satisfied her, because she nodded a little and shuffled out the door, her pink, fuzzy slippers padding softly on the hardwood floor.

"Well, you better get your ass in gear then," she called out as she left. "Cause you're gonna be late."

As he hurriedly got ready for the day, Aaron kept thinking about the night before. He had no idea what Soren and Niobe were talking about, but he knew they were right about one thing. He _had_ been looking for something. That's why he'd gotten into computers in the first place. The wealth of knowledge that computers afforded was a temptation that Aaron could not refuse. He didn't know what he was looking for. He never had. But he was sure he would know it when he found it, and so the more he looked without finding anything, the harder he would keep trying until he learned the wonderful art of hacking and the world of knowledge it could unlock. Thus his online persona of Axel was born. He'd never done anything really major; mainly he just hacked in order to learn things, but he had on occasion intentionally caused a few messes though by messing with traffic lights and what-not.

But upon reflecting on last night's events, it sounded like that was about to change. Whatever Vector had gotten him into, it sounded like it was going to be big, and all hackers involved would go down in infamy. He marveled at the thought that the name "Axel" might instill the same feeling of foreboding as one of the greats like Trinity or Morpheus. But he wasn't entirely sure he wanted it to be that way. He liked being small, unknown and un-thought of, working in the shadows. If suddenly Axel came into the spotlight, it would make his simple hobby of hacking into encrypted databases much harder. People would be looking for him. Did he really want that?

"Aaron! It's ten o'clock! You really oughtta be going now!" his mother's voice floated up to him from downstairs.

Aaron stuffed his wallet into his pants pocket and grabbed his jacket off the back of the desk chair. No. He didn't think he did want that. Maybe if he knew a little more about the overall plan than just his part in it he might be more inclined to go with it, but as it was, he didn't think he wanted any part of it. He put on the jacket and started down the stairs, stuffing his hands in his pockets. His left hand came upon an unfamiliar shape, and he paused half-way down the stairs, wrapping his fingers around the object and pulling it out. It was the cell phone Soren gave him last night. _And what was that all about?_ He thought, _Who__ will be looking for me now?_

Suddenly it started to ring, and he gasped, almost dropping it in surprise. Fumbling with it, he finally managed to open it and put it to his ear, eyes wide.

"Hello?"

"Axel," the voice was Soren's. "They're coming for you."

"Who is?"

"Go back upstairs."

"What? Why?"

"Do you trust me, Axel?"

He thought for a second, "Y- yeah… I guess so."

"Then go back upstairs. Now."

Aaron heard footsteps on the first floor, heavy and crisp. Not like the light shuffling of his mother in her slippers. These footsteps were unfamiliar. So was the shadow growing on the wall at the base of the stairs. Aaron stared at it, wide-eyed. Frozen in fear. _What the hell is going on?_

The owner of the shadow finally appeared at the base of the stairs. It was a man, dressed nicely in a suit and tie with sunglasses on and neatly combed hair. He looked like he belonged in the secret service. The man looked at him expressionlessly, and Aaron could only stare back, mouth open and eyes wide.

"Mr. Fairfax," the man said in a monotone.

"NOW!" the voice on the phone shouted.

That made Aaron start back up the stairs in a dead run with a surge of adrenaline. The man at the bottom of the stairs started up after him, moving slowly but with purpose. He knew that he had Aaron trapped. The stairs were the only way down. There was nowhere to go. Aaron bolted into his room, locked the door, and put his back against it.

"Who the hell is that?" he whispered urgently into the phone.

"That is an agent. You must not let him catch you," said Soren with only the slightest hint of emotion in his voice.

"Well what else am I supposed to do? He has me trapped!"

"You're not trapped. You can use the window."

"My windows don't open!"

"I know. Use the baseball bat in your closet to break it."

Aaron, turned to his closet and, holding the phone with one hand, grabbed the bat with the other, went to the window, and mustering up all the strength he could, swung the bat. The window broke deafeningly but not completely. There were still many jagged shards of glass left in the windowsill. He wound up to swing again, but the voice cut him off.

"No time. Jump now."

Just then, a hand burst through the door and reached for the knob to unlock it. Aaron whirled around and looked in shock at the feat of strength. "Who is that??" he shouted into the phone, his voice rising in panic.

" Jump now. There is a large pile of leaves under your window. They should break your fall. Now jump!"

"How do you know this??"

"Jump or be captured!" The phone went dead.

Aaron ran for the window and jumped through, screaming as he plummeted to the ground. He landed squarely in the pile of leaves and was quickly buried in them. He remembered raking the leaves and putting them all in the one huge pile. His mother kept telling him that putting them all in one big pile was not the whole job, that he needed to throw the leaves away, but he'd never gotten around to it. Now he was very glad that he hadn't. The impact still hurt, but he imagined that if it had just been the ground he would have likely broken one or both of his legs. He stood up and staggered shakily out of the leaves. He delved in his pocket for his car keys, found them, and took off for the car.

"Don't try to run, Mr. Fairfax," shouted the man from the window. "You'll only make it worse for yourself." And without waiting for Aaron to comply, the man leapt from the window and landed softly on his feet just beyond the leaves. Aaron gasped and backed away too quickly, stumbling over his own feet and falling to the ground. Not bothering to get up, he used his hands and feet to scurry away from the approaching agent, breathing heavily. The agent reached down, and picked Aaron off the ground by his jacket like he weighed nothing. Aaron shouted and struggled but to no avail.

"We only want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Fairfax. All you have to do is cooperate, and no harm will come to you." The agent paused for effect, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. "Or your mother."

Aaron halted in his struggling, staring at the man in horror. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing," said the man calmly, "But I cannot guarantee that it will remain that way if you do not cooperate."

All inhibition in Aaron snapped, he gripped his keychain so the keys stuck out between his fingers and turned his hand into a fist. "You won't touch her!" he shouted and struck the man in the face, using the keys like brass knuckles. The keys tore a gash into the man's cheek, and the blow took the man by surprise; his grip on Aaron loosened a little but not enough for Aaron to escape his grasp. The man turned his head to look at Aaron again, his face hardened into a glare.

The agent was angry, but just how angry Aaron couldn't tell because the sunglasses the agent was wearing blocked his eyes. Whatever the case, he could tell that he was going to have to do much better if he was to get out of this unscathed. The man curled his upper lip in a faint snarl and threw Aaron like a rag doll against the house. The impact knocked all the wind out of Aaron, and it took every effort for him to stay on his feet. He ran toward the car hunched over, holding his chest painfully, as he finally succeeded in starting to breathe again. A hand wound its way into his dark hair and pulled him back. Aaron thrashed at the hand, but the grip would not loosen. It pulled his head back and the agent hissed into his ear.

"That was a mistake," and then he bashed Aaron's head into the house. Aaron shouted in pain and went limp with shock as the hand let go. Bent over painfully, holding his bleeding nose and mouth in both hands. He hoped that nothing was broken, but he couldn't be sure; he had to get out of here. Without warning, he lashed out with his foot and caught the agent right in the stomach. The agent doubled over and stumbled back several steps. Aaron took the opportunity to run to his car, still holding one hand to his face and got in. The agent slammed against the window, but Aaron ignored him, turning on the car and backing away from his opponent. The agent walked into the middle of the driveway and stood a short distance in front of the car, scowling furiously, but with a malicious grin on his face also that scared Aaron.

Aaron put the car in drive and slammed the accelerator. Something happened just before he struck the agent that Aaron couldn't quite put his finger on. A flicker of something or a change so abrupt that he couldn't quite see it. The agent's body slammed up against the windshield and flew over the car. Aaron slammed on the breaks to keep from hitting the garage. He hit it anyway, and the airbag puffed out suddenly, catching him in the already hurt face. For the next several seconds all he could do was just sit there, exhausted, scared, and hurt, trying to regain his breath, and blood still oozing from his nose and mouth. Finally, he opened the door slowly and stumbled out of the car, looking at the broken body lying on the ground behind the car, but as he looked closer his breath caught in his throat and he froze, eyes wide. That was not the man he hit. The hair was not the short, dark hair of the agent, but long, curly and graying. The body was not wearing the dark suit that the agent had been wearing but rather a light, floral nightgown… and pink, fuzzy slippers. Aaron cried out in anguish as he realized who he was looking at, and he ran to her and threw himself to his knees beside her, taking her up in his arms.

"Mom? Mom??" tears squirted out of his eyes as she failed to respond. "Mom! No… I'm sorry… Mom? Come on, please don't go!" Her cheek was torn open as the agent's had been, but how could that be? Had he just imagined the whole thing? He cradled her head close to him and rocked back and forth. It didn't matter if he'd imagined it or not. His mother was the only person he ever felt really close to, and he'd just killed her. "I'm sorry…" he whispered then broke down completely and wept over her, his tears mingling with his blood.


	3. The Car Ride

Thank you to those of you that have reviewed. I really appreciate it! Sorry it took me a while to post this chapter.

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Aaron sat on the bench under the pouring rain. A streetlamp a couple yards away provided his only illumination. It was freezing, but though his body shivered, his mind hardly noticed the cold. He only sat there, huddled, alone, staring at the ground but seeing nothing. The rest of the day since he'd discovered the bloody corpse of his mother where it should have been the agent had seemed surreal. He'd cried over his mother's lifeless body until he heard sirens in the distance. Something inside of him told him that if the police found him and took him in for questioning, he would never come back. So he forced himself to let go of his mother and run in the opposite direction of those sirens, disappearing into the forest that surrounded his neighborhood. When he felt he'd run far enough into the forest to not be found, he dropped to his knees and wept some more. He didn't dare to think that the whole fight between him and the agent, the phone call from Soren, had just been a delusion brought on by last night's events and that he'd really just murdered his mother in cold blood, but he couldn't think of any other possible alternatives. Finally he'd staggered to his feet and trudged forward, wrapping his arms around himself, feeling helpless, vulnerable, and miserable. That's when it started raining. He vaguely wondered where he was going, but he already knew. He was going to the meeting place specified on the slip of paper Niobe had given him. Since he'd wrecked his car he would have to walk the whole way, and that part of the city wasn't exactly close, even by driving standards.

And now here he sat, waiting for something to happen, emotionally drained, physically exhausted, cold, wet, and shivering. Dried blood still covered the lower half of his face from the fight. His hair hung in wet strands over his unblinking eyes, water droplets forming on the ends and falling silently into his lap. His arms were crossed tightly in front of him in a feeble effort to hold on to what little heat he had left. His eyes were red, but there were no tears; he doubted he even had any left. He looked nearly catatonic. Finally a long black sedan pulled up in front of the bench he sat in, and he shifted his gaze for the first time since he'd sat down. He looked up at the passenger window as it rolled down and a thin Asian woman peered out at him through sunglasses.

"Get in," she said flatly.

Aaron could only look at her silently. His mind wasn't really processing anything. For a moment he thought she was an agent. They wore dark clothing and sunglasses too, didn't they? He wasn't even sure if the agent had been real though. He wasn't sure of anything anymore.

"Axel, don't make me tell you again," she said this time with an edge of impatience to her voice.

With the usage of his online alias, it suddenly clicked in Aaron's mind the reason he'd been sitting on this particular bench in the first place. He rose shakily to his feet, walked over to the rear door and slowly got in. As soon as the door was closed, the car lurched forward again. Vector was driving, and Niobe was sitting in the back behind him, but Aaron didn't look at either of them. Niobe offered him a small wad of tissues to clean off the blood on his face, which he accepted without a word and used to dab absently under his nose. He didn't bother asking where they were taking him. He didn't care anymore. Everything was different now. His ties to this miserable world and its population were severed. He felt truly alone right now, even though every seat in this car was filled.

Niobe watched the young man slide silently into the car and stare wordlessly down into his lap while dabbing at his own dried blood, and she couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Soren had been watching Axel for a while now through his operator on board the _Vigilant_. He'd even assigned Vector to befriend Axel online. The only reason Niobe was involved at all was that the _Logos_ had been sent with the _Vigilant_ to accomplish a certain task within the matrix. But since the task was neither pressing nor particularly sensitive, Soren had decided to take the opportunity to finally try and free Axel first, and Niobe had agreed to help. Ever since the meeting last night, she'd been watching Axel herself on board the _Logos_. Whenever they contacted a human that was still part of the matrix, agents were automatically drawn to the human. Normally they'd bug the person, and Binary would probably be working on debugging Axel right now. But somehow Axel had avoided it, a fact that was impressive to Niobe. Already he had skills, and he hadn't even started training yet. Unfortunately, though, it had cost him dearly. The bastard agent had inhabited Axel's mother in order to apprehend him, and when Axel had killed him, his mother had died instead. Niobe couldn't even begin to imagine what Axel was going through right now—especially given the fact that he didn't even know what agents were.

She'd been watching him for several minutes now, but he hadn't moved since he'd entered the car. He didn't even seem to notice her watching him. He'd stopped dabbing now and was just holding the tissues to his nose as he continued staring sadly down into his lap, with his cheeks tearstained and his red eyes causing the normally latent blue of his irises to stand out brilliantly in contrast. Finally she put a hand softly on his shoulder, and he turned those eyes towards her, lowering the tissues.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said softly, true emotion in her voice. "But it wasn't your fault."

For a moment he looked surprised that she knew, but the look faded back into miserable guilt. "I killed her," he said, his voice unsteady from a day of almost constant tears. "How is that not my fault?"

"You killed the agent," she corrected.

"The agent was real?" he asked with the tiniest hint of hope.

"As real as this car, and believe me when I say that you would not have liked what he was going to do to you if he had caught you."

"Not at all," Vector interjected knowingly.

Niobe glanced at Vector before continuing on reassuringly to Axel, "You did what you had to do. It's the agent's fault you mother died."

Axel only looked at her in uncertainty. Already he looked less miserable, but what misery that was now absent had been replaced with confusion. "But I don't understand," he countered, "I saw her. I saw her lying on the ground where I hit her. That wasn't an agent."

"Was it her you saw when you revved the engine and hit her?" Niobe asked, already knowing the answer.

"Well, no, but—"

"That's because it was the agent you hit."

"But—" he trailed off, running a hand agitatedly through his hair. He kept remembering that flicker of something he'd seen as he hit the agent. That flicker of change, but he didn't know what it meant. Everything was becoming so confusing.

"I can see you're confused. Don't worry. Soren will explain everything when we get there.

Several minutes later the sedan pulled up around the back of an old abandoned cathedral and stopped. Automatically, Vector and Binary got out of the car and went in through a door Aaron didn't even see at first. Then Niobe got out her side, and Aaron decided to follow suit. She started walking towards a different door than the other two had gone through and called back over her shoulder.

"Follow me. Soren's waiting for you."

Aaron took up stride behind her quietly, still trying to take all this in, as she led him inside.


	4. The Choice

Thanks to lockedinabathroom for being the only one to review this since I posted the last chapter. Where's everyone else gone? Please, if you read this, review it. Even if you don't like it. I really like reviews!  
Ahem... anyway, on to chapter 4.

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The interior of the cathedral was very dim. The stale smell of dust saturated the air. How long had it been since this cathedral had been used for its original purpose? As Niobe led him through the foyer, Aaron noticed with some amusement that while the church itself seemed to be falling apart, there was still holy water in the basin. He felt compelled to dip his fingers in and cross himself; old habits die hard, it would seem. The water was even still clean. Niobe had stopped by a large set of double doors and was watching him, one corner of her mouth turned up in a bemused smile. 

"In here," she said when he looked at her, opening the door and waiting for him to pass through.

Aaron walked through silently; when he turned to let her lead again she was no longer there, and the large door was slowly swinging shut behind him. He frowned and took a step towards the door again.

"Don't worry about her," came Soren's voice from the dark chapel. "She has other things she must do." Aaron turned around and saw Soren sitting in one of the pews near the front of the chapel. Soren turned his head and peered over his shoulder at him. "Come," he said simply.

Walking slowly to the front on numb legs, Aaron shook his head and tried to force himself to believe this was really happening. It was all so very strange. He took a seat beside Soren on the pew wordlessly.

"Do you know why you're here, Axel?" Soren asked after a pause.

"Because I have nowhere else to go," Aaron replied in a hushed tone. "No one else to turn to."

"Yes, I know what happened," Soren said, nodding slightly.

Aaron looked down at the floor to try and hide his feelings from the older man, a single tear slid down his cheek.

"But do you know _why_ it happened?"

Aaron shook his head, keeping his eyes glued to the floor.

"Because you know something. You always have. Something has always seemed a bit off to you, but what exactly it is eludes you. Am I right?" This time Aaron nodded slightly. "You have always been filled with questions, but you've never been able to find the answers. Believe me when I say that I know how frustrating that is."

Finally Aaron raised his head and looked Soren in the eye. "What's going on here? One moment I'm just a normal guy, living a normal life in a normal house trying to support my mother. Granted, some of my internet activity was somewhat less than legal. But then I meet you and my life completely falls apart. And now here I am, sitting in an ancient cathedral in the middle of nowhere talking to someone I didn't even know two days ago, trying to figure out the meaning of your vague hints, while for all I know, my mother's corpse is _still _lying on the driveway getting soaked by the rain. If I had known that agreeing to take part in your plan would lead to this, I never would have accepted. Why should I trust you now?"

"Because I have the answer you've been looking for."

Aaron just looked at him for a moment, unsure of whether to believe him or not.

"But the choice to accept it must be yours." He raised his fisted hands, turning them palm up and opening them. There was a capsule in each hand, one red, one blue. Aaron looked from one to the other in complete perplexity.

"What is this?" he inquired a little fearfully.

"Take the blue pill and your life goes on as it always has. Your mother will still be dead, but the agents will leave you alone, and this will all just be a bad dream. Take the red pill and all of your questions will be answered, but your life will never be the same again. Choose carefully, Axel. Whatever you choose, be certain it is what you want. Because there will be no turning back." Soren's eyes seemed to be drilling into Aaron's very core, but Aaron wasn't looking; instead he glanced from one pill to the other, as Soren waited patiently.

At last he sighed, "The way I see it, my life has already been changed. I don't think anything'll bring it back to the way it was, no matter what you might have put into that blue pill." Aaron sighed again, still glancing from one pill to the other, then he raised his left hand and took up the red pill from the palm of Soren's right, "I might as well get some answers while I'm at it." He threw the pill into his mouth and swallowed the smooth capsule dry, cringing a little as it slid uneasily down his throat.

Soren closed his left hand over the blue pill, and a pleased smile spread over his face. "Good," he said softly. "Come with me." He stood up and walked back up the center aisle towards the large double doors Aaron had come in through, and Aaron followed.

When he emerged from the dark chapel, he was surprised to see that the others had created a mini-computer lab of sorts in the foyer. While Niobe was nowhere to be seen, Vector was tapping away at a laptop that was hooked up to all sorts of gizmos, the short Asian woman who'd ridden shotgun on the ride up, Binary, walked up to him and escorted him to a chair near the double doors. Aaron complied but kept looking at Soren for some sort of explanation as to what was going on. Binary attached an electrode to his left arm and told him to remain still. Aaron looked at Soren again, slow fear rising up in the midst the murk of his confusion.

"What are you doing?" he finally asked.

"We're trying to find you," Soren said matter-of-factly. "The red pill had a tracer program embedded in it."

"What do you mean 'trying to find me'?" Aaron asked, more confused than ever. "I'm right here."

"So you have been led to think, Axel. But all of your life you've been deceived. You have never seen the world as it truly is, but it's high time that you did."

Aaron looked around and noticed the holy water in the basin had turned red. He furrowed his brow in mild surprise.

"It's high time that you shed this dream world. This illusion, and see… hear…taste… smell…"

Aaron reached over with the hand not attached to electrodes and dipped his fingertips in the holy water… but it was like no water he'd ever touched before. It was cold and had the consistency of runny jello.

"Touch the world for the first time."

Immediately the stuff began to crawl up Aaron's arm towards his shoulder. He cried out and tried to pull his arm away, but the stuff held his hand in place, and he could not move it. His breathing became more and more rapid. "What is this?" he shouted breathlessly. The icy substance went up under his sleeve, and upon reaching his shoulder, spread out across his chest to his other shoulder, down his torso and pooling around his neck. Already his right arm was numb from the iciness.

"It's high time that you wake up."

"It's so cold!" Aaron gasped, squirming away from the substance that he could not escape, "So cold! Get it off me!" He was starting to hyperventilate. It was oozing down his legs and spreading up around his face. He tried to rub it off with his left hand before it too was engulfed, "Get it off!"

"Wake up, Axel."

The world began to become distorted around him as the freezing liquid spread over his face, and covered his eyes. He clamped his mouth closed to keep it from getting in, but then the liquid covered his nose, went up it, and he suddenly couldn't breathe. His left arm and legs were now also numb. He was panicking. Lungs on fire, he finally gaped his mouth open to gulp in air, but the stuff spread into his mouth and down his throat.

In the distance he heard Vector say, "I've found him."

Soren said something in response, but his voice became distorted, strangely electronic. The world melted away as Aaron's senses began to fade one by one, leaving only his sense of touch. The icy sensation of the liquid completely engulfed him. He tried to scream but there came no sound. He was alone, and he was surrounded by something he could not describe. The world became darkness.


	5. The Awakening

Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! They are very much appreciated. Sorry it took so long for me to come out with this chapter. I've had a very busy week. I hope you enjoy! )

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Cold and wet.

That's all he could sense. His entire body was encased in freezing gelatinous goo. Where was he? What was this all around him? He tried thrashing around, but his arms encountered solid resistance on either side; something else was inhibiting his movement too, but he couldn't quite tell what—almost like something was holding on to his arms and legs and keeping him from moving. Already his limbs were insurmountably tired as though he'd been thrashing for hours, despite the fact that it had only been a few moments. He opened his eyes but saw nothing; the goo mercilessly blinded him. He was surprised by how sensitive his eyes had become to what little light there was, and he squeezed them shut again. He had to breathe. He had to get out to the air, but where was the air? Terrified, confused, he tried to scream, but there was something in him… a long, large metal tube going down his throat and into his stomach and lungs.

Using every bit of strength he could muster, he pushed his hands down underneath of him and pushed himself awkwardly to a sitting position. His face encountered resistance on the way up… surface tension of some sort, like tearing through elastic. Finally whatever it was broke and he felt cold, fresh air smack his face. He tried to breathe again, but the large tube just choked him. He grasped it in both hands and weakly yanked it out of his mouth, gagging as the thing slid out of his stomach and lungs. He grabbed the edge of the basin he was in, dry-heaved over the side, then just rested there for a few moments, already exhausted and breathing heavily. At last he dared to open his eyes again, but what he saw challenged his very sanity. He was in a very large chamber, confined to a pod of sorts filled with viscous pink goo, and there were millions of other pods in there with him, lining the walls, and each one was filled with a person. What the hell was this? He turned his attention to himself, and suddenly he realized that he was naked. There were cords and tubes all over him, going _into_ him. He started to hyperventilate again, pulling against the cords in an effort to free himself, only to find that they were thoroughly embedded into his skin. Finally he just flopped tiredly against the side of his basin again, his head and arms hanging over the edge, and brought his hands up to support his head, discovering with surprise that he didn't have hair anymore. As he slid his hand over his smooth, bald crown, he discovered a large plug embedded into the back of his head.

Just then he heard some large form chittering and jabbering mechanically above him and sensed more than actually saw a large shadow fall over him, but he didn't bother looking up to see what it was. He didn't think he even had the strength to lift his head anymore. Then, suddenly something clamped down on the back of his neck, and he gasped in surprise before groping backwards for the thing, trying to get it to let go as it started squeezing his airway shut. He felt something attach to the plug in the back of his head and drill it out—without a doubt the strangest feeling he had ever had—then the metal thing let go of his neck and whatever it was left. He coughed weakly, and slid back into his goo, trying to regain his breath. The rest after that was just a blur that he hardly remembered. One moment all of the cords started snapping out of his arms, legs, back and chest, the next he was sliding down some sort of chute that had appeared in the back of basin, which ended abruptly about sixty feet above a large body of water. His heart nearly stopped during the long freefall into the lake. When his body hit the water, his heart did stop for a moment. The temperature was so low that it felt like a thousand needles had been plunged into his skin at once. Then water dumped into his mouth, and his heart started racing again as he realized that he was sinking. He started feebly kicking his feet and flailing his arms, but it did very little to help him. Panic gripped him for the thousandth time since waking up in this place. Had he suddenly lost his ability to swim? None of this made any sense. It was like a nightmare. This couldn't possibly be real.

He struggled and fought to keep his face above the water when his hand brushed something. Something that was floating. He wrapped his hand around it and pulled himself closer to try and use it to help him stay above the water. But that's when he actually saw what it was.

The arm of someone's bloated corpse.

He yelped and pushed it away, before noticing that there were hundreds of others occupying the water around him. Some were bloated, some were fresh… but out of all of them, he was the only one who was moving. Finally his tenacious hold on reality slipped loose and he fell into a faint, slowly sinking under the water, but no longer caring.

"Axel?"

The voice tore through his nightmarish sleep, and Aaron jolted awake suddenly with a gasp. His eyes darted everywhere at once, trying to figure out where he was. He was in a small, cold room that he'd never seen before in his life. Trying to sit up, he felt a hand press on his chest in an effort to get him to lie down again.

"Easy… easy," the hand's owner said soothingly, "You're gonna hurt yourself. Calm down."

His muscles relaxed, and he lay back down, closing his eyes; even the slight usage of them made them tired. Eventually he pulled himself wearily to a sitting position. "Where am I?" he asked, surprised by the lack of strength present in his own voice.

"You're on a ship called the _Vigilant._You've been kinda dozing in and out for about a week now."

"A week?" Aaron sighed and rubbed his eyes with an unsteady hand, "So all that was just a dream?" he asked, his voice cutting out involuntarily to a whisper on the last word.

"All of what, exactly?"

"I was in a tub of some viscous goo and I had tubes all over me. Then I fell into a lake or something filled with dead people. That must have been a dream."

"Oh no, Axel. Aside from this conversation, that's the most real thing you've experienced in your whole life."

"But…" without opening his eyes, he drew his eyebrows together in concentration, trying to figure it all out, "I was drowning. I was all alone in my dream, and I was drowning. If it was real, how'd I get here? Why am I still alive?"

"Well you did have us worried there for a little while. You see, the _Vigilant _was trying to find you. When we got to the vat, or the lake as you call it, we had to look for you through heat sensors. We brought you on board, but you were already unconscious and you weren't breathing. Soren was afraid we were too late, but he didn't give up on you. We pumped the water out of your lungs and you started breathing again, just like that. Gave us quite a scare though. To be honest though, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often."

They sat for a few minutes in silence. Finally Aaron opened his eyes again and looked at the owner of the voice. She looked to be even younger than he was. She was very pretty, but he'd never seen her before. "Who are you?"

"I'm Virulanna. I'm a member of the crew here. I've been watching over you this past week. Making sure you didn't wake up alone. I know that can be pretty freaky."

"I'm so confused," Aaron, leaned his head back and ran his hand through his hair, surprised by how short it was, but grateful that he wasn't bald like he'd been in the dream. "What's going on? What's happening to me?"

"You've been pulled out of the matrix, Axel." Virulanna said, "and don't bother asking me more about the matrix. Soren's gonna tell you all about it when the time comes."

He sniffed a humorless chuckle at the continued use of his online alias. "I feel so strange. Like I feel really weak, but at the same time my muscles are all on edge."

"Ah," she nodded. "That's understandable. You've spent your whole life sleeping, almost completely motionless. Your muscles have atrophied. We've spent the past week stimulating them with electric impulses, trying to get them to a working condition again. Your eyes probably hurt too."

"Yeah," he said, impulsively rubbing them again.

"That's because this is the first time you've actually used them to look around in your whole life. They've gotten so used to staring at your eyelids that they don't know what to do with all this light."

"Because I've been sleeping all my life?"

"Exactly."

"But I haven't been sleeping all my life."

"Hmm," she gave a bemused chuckle, "That's what you think." She reached over and unplugged a cord that he didn't even notice was there from an outlet in his arm, and helped him to his feet. As soon as he was standing, he became extremely dizzy, and his legs tried to crumple beneath his weight. Luckily, Virulanna quickly grabbed his arm and kept him from falling down completely. When she'd helped him firmly establish a standing position she asked, "Can you walk?"

He took a couple steps on his own and wobbled, grabbing onto the wall for support. It was difficult, but he could. He turned and nodded his head in confirmation.

"Okay, good," she said, walking out the door. "Follow me. Soren wants to see you."


	6. The Future

Gah! Sorry it's taken me so long to come out with this chapter. Much thanks for those of you who have reviewed and continued reading so faithfully! I'll stop rambling now and let you read chapter 6! Enjoy! )

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When Axel saw Soren for the first time after waking up in this nightmare world he was surprised. This man was nothing like the imposing character Axel had encountered before. Now Soren looked so much more frail, and yet somehow it made him seem more human. Axel supposed it was probably in large part attributable to the shabby clothing Soren was now wearing, all frayed and torn around the edges. Only then did Axel realize that both he and Virulanna were wearing similarly unkempt garments. Odd. 

Soren saw Axel and smiled warmly. "Ah, I've been expecting you."

"So I've been told," Axel replied softly, glancing at Virulanna, who was leaving quietly.

"Yes…" Soren looked long and hard at Axel for several minutes until Axel began to shift uncomfortably. "I bet you are very confused." He said finally.

"Picked up on that, did you?" Axel said in semi-sarcasm.

Soren chuckled, "Beyond that, I would imagine you're also very frustrated. You chose the red pill in the hopes of finding answers to questions that had been bothering you for your entire life. But ever since taking that red pill you have been met with only more questions. Am I right?"

"Yeah. I'm a lot more confused than I was before. That's for sure."

"I understand that completely. But now that you've been released from the matrix and have finally seen the world around you with your own two eyes, you're ready to take the answers I have to give you. You have your questions. Now is your chance to ask them."

"Yeah, okay." Axel swallowed and looked thoughtfully at the floor. "I guess for starters, what exactly is the matrix?"

"Straight to the point," Soren smiled again. "You could say that the matrix is a dream world, but it is much more than just a dream. Have you ever heard of collective unconsciousness?"

"Uhh…" he stopped to think about it for a second. "That's the theory that says that under certain circumstances, many people can go to sleep and all be in the same dream, right?"

Soren nodded cryptically.

"But that's just science fiction, isn't it?"

"Not as much as they'd have you believe. What if everyone's minds were hooked up to a single, complicated program that caused them to dream that they are all in the same world? What if this machine-induced dream was so collective that you could actually interact with millions other people through it without ever having seen them before in reality? Now imagine that this dream is so lucid and realistic that you couldn't tell it from reality… that you've been in this dream your whole life. It would seem pretty real, wouldn't it?"

"I guess so."

"This dream, or rather the program that induces it is the matrix."

Axel just sat and absorbed all of this, trying to understand what Soren was telling him. It was still very confusing. "So exactly what are you saying? That my whole life has been nothing but a dream? That my family and friends… my mother was just a dream? That I just imagined everything?"

"No, you didn't just imagine it." Soren shook his head, "Don't think that. The people you interacted with every day are real people hooked up to the matrix sharing the same dream. Up until a short while ago, you were just one of billions of people whose brains are all plugged in to one massive program, designed to stimulate all of the senses… sight, sound, smell, taste, touch… to make them believe that they are living out their lives in a simulated world as though it is real. But know this: though the world created by the matrix does not exist in reality, what happens in it is just as real as your senses make it."

"So if you get hurt in the matrix do you get hurt in real life?"

"Yes… and if you die in the matrix you die in real life."

"So this is the real world outside of the matrix? And everything I experienced before waking up in that tub of goo was in the matrix?"

"Yes."

"How do I know this isn't just one crazy dream? Or maybe that pill you gave me had some sort of drug in it and I'm in a padded cell somewhere hallucinating all this."

"Does this seem like a dream to you?"

"No," Axel admitted, "But neither did my whole life before this, and you're saying that was just a dream."

"Yes. Doubts like this were to be expected. That's why I'm going to show you. Then you will see how real the matrix can be."

----------

"You want me to sit in that?" Axel looked doubtfully at the chair.

Soren had led him into a room filled with computers, databases, and all manner of other gizmos. Sitting at what Axel could only think of as the "command station" was a man that Soren had introduced as Ajax, the ship's operator, whatever that meant. In the middle of the room was the chair in question. It looked like something you'd find in a dentist's office except metal and a million times more menacing. It had screens all around it and a giant needle attached to a cord resting on a table nearby. And of course, no freaky dentist chair is complete without restraints.

"Yes," Soren replied simply, unfazed by any of this. "If you want to see for yourself how the matrix works."

"Don't worry about it, Axel," Ajax looked up from the dozens of screens clustered around his station. "I've seen plenty of people just like you go in and out of that chair for the first time, and they only come out slightly more traumatized than when they went in."

"You're not helping," Soren looked sideways at Ajax.

Ajax stifled a chuckle, "Sorry."

"How is… that," Axel flailed an arm at the frightening chair, "going to help me know more about the matrix?"

"You'll see," Soren stepped up to the table by the chair and took the long needle up in one hand while gesturing to the chair with the other. "Sit."

Sighing deeply, Axel submissively sat in the chair and looked anxiously at Soren. The latter instantly set to work at securing the restraints on Axel's wrists and feet.

"Hey, look, is all this really necessary?"

"Yes, you might accidentally unplug yourself."

"Unplug myself? Wh—?"

"Generally, the first experience with this can get a bit violent on your part. Lean your head back."

Axel complied, but his level apprehension only grew. "Why can it be a bit violent on my part?"

"Because this will probably take you by surprise."

Without further ado, Soren brought up the long needle and jammed it into the plug in the back of Axel's head. Axel gasped and clenched his eyes shut as his entire body jumped in surprise. His senses underwent a sort of tingling sensation, much like the feeling of transition that comes with waking up from a vivid dream. When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer sitting on the chair. For that matter he was no longer sitting. As far as he could tell, he was standing in the middle of nowhere. The area all around him was white, but not because there were white walls, floor, or ceiling around him. As far as he could tell, none of that was present at all. At least there were no corners, seams, or horizon to indicate it. It was complete nothingness. The only reason it was white was because it had to be some color. At first Axel thought that maybe Soren had killed him and that this was what the afterlife looked like. He looked down to see if he could still see his hands. They were still there, and still fully opaque. Then he noticed what he was wearing. It wasn't the frayed garments that he'd been wearing two seconds ago. It was what he'd been wearing when he had gone to meet Soren at the chapel, right down to the tears and bloodstains from the fight. He looked at it for a second, confused, then brought a hand up to his hair to see if it was still close-cropped. It wasn't. It was much longer as it had been before he woke up in the basin. The plugs in his arms and head were gone too. _What the hell?_ He thought, _Did__ that little red __pill make me dream all that stuff and now it's finally killed me?_

"You're not dead," Soren's voice came from behind him, and he whirled around.

"What's going on?" Axel demanded, struggling to remain calm. "Why do I look different? Is this the matrix?"

"You look like that because that is how you perceive yourself to look, and since everything here is in our minds, that is how you actually appear."

"So this _is_ the matrix."

"No," Soren replied. "Putting you back into the matrix so soon is too dangerous. You are not yet strong enough for that. This is our own program, designed to help you understand the matrix."

"So then, basically the matrix is this virtual reality world that people's brains have been hooked up to that looks and feels absolutely real?"

"Yes," Soren smiled, "exactly."

Axel nodded, "Gotchya. Now here's a question: Why?"

"Why?"

"Yeah. Why would the entire human race have their brains plugged into a computer that makes them think they're actually living in a world that doesn't really exist? I mean I've heard of internet junkies, but this is a bit extreme. Did we do it to ourselves or what?"

"I was hoping you'd ask that. Turn around."

Axel did so and behind him was a sudden cliff into a deep ravine filled with thousands upon thousands of some sort of massive crop, but he couldn't tell just what it was. He could see hundreds of machines harvesting something pink off of the crops. Dark clouds blotted the sky, and he was suddenly very cold.

"What the hell are those?" Axel asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

"What year is it?" Soren asked, walking up next to him and looking out upon the canyon.

"What?" Axel responded abruptly, thrown off by the sudden change of subject.

"What year is it?" Soren repeated.

"I- I don't know. If my whole life up until waking up was fake then I don't know what the real date is, right? For all I know the calendar I'm used to is nothing like the calendar in the real world."

"That's true, but what was it when you left the matrix?"

"2002," he replied.

"As far as we can tell, that was about two hundred years ago." Soren nodded towards the ravine. "This is the world as it is today. You see, not long after the era you've become accustomed to, we developed artificial intelligence. We don't know exactly what happened, but a war developed between man and machine, and we know that we scorched the sky."

Axel looked up at the blackened sky, "Why would we want to do that?"

"The machines were solar powered."

"Oh… well it looks like the machines are still up and running," Axel replied looking back to the machines harvesting the strange crops. "What are they running on now?"

"You're not going to like the answer to that," Soren said ominously.

"Why?" Axel looked nervously at the crops… something about them looked familiar, "What are they harvesting down there?"

"The human body possesses a great deal of electricity. That's what keeps it running."

It suddenly dawned on him, what Soren was getting at, "Oh… no…"

"The machines realized this long ago, and enslaved the entire human race. Now, everyday, humans are _grown_ like a popular vegetable in fields like the one you see before you, born into a coffin filled with liquid, but they are completely unaware of it because their senses have been blindfolded by the matrix. We are being used as the power source for our own greatest foe."

"No… this can't be real. None of this," Axel put his hands up over his eyes and backed away from the precipice. He recognized the pink "fruits" on the crops for what they really were now. They were pods like the one he'd woken up in… much smaller though… and in each of them was a human baby, curled up in a fetal position, a macabre mockery of being in the womb. "It's all just a crazy dream. It isn't real!"

"Calm down, Axel," Soren insisted, growing a bit concerned. "Please."

"No! My name's Aaron Fairfax! I'm asleep in my bed back at home and none of this is really happening! None of it! LET ME OUT!!!"


	7. The Sparring Match

I'm so sorry I've taken so long to update. I ran into some nasty writer's block. Hopefully it's over now though. Thanks for all the reviews! And I made this chapter extra long to make up for my lack of update. ;)

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Back in the real world Ajax watched the conversation between Axel and Soren unfold on several of the screens. It was really nothing but streams of code, but he'd been the operator of the _Vigilant _for so long that it didn't seem that way to him. To him it looked like a video feed. And just as he'd expected, Axel started freaking out when he learned about the machines' current power source. Everybody did when they first found out. He watched in a vague mixture of concern and amusement as Axel's body began to twitch and stir in reality, pulling weakly against the restraints. Soren was sitting in another chair next to him, but he was completely still. A few seconds later Soren's voice came over the headphones Ajax almost always wore.

"Ajax, shut it down."

Automatically Ajax began typing furiously at the keyboard. The second he entered the shutdown command Axel's eyes sprang wide open, and he began pulling against his restraints much more harshly and screaming, "Let me out of here!" over and over again. Next to him Soren calmly opened his eyes and waited for Ajax to unplug them.

----------

Soren said something to someone, but Axel didn't care what or to whom it was said. None of it was real. It couldn't be. He refused to believe it. Suddenly the nightmare world he was in began to disappear around him, and he closed his eyes. Yes. They had just played a cruel trick on him. In the chapel Soren had given him a trippy pill that made him imagine all this. It was just a dream, and now he was waking up. But when he opened his eyes, he wasn't back at the chapel. He was back in the strange metal chair surrounded by computers. He tried to get up, but his hands and feet were still restrained and something was in the back of his head, holding it back. All he could do was scream, "Let me out!" over and over again. He felt sick. The faces of Ajax and Soren came into his vision.

"Calm down, Axel," said Soren gently, "Please, you're going to hurt yourself."

Just then Ajax held down Axel's head with one hand and pulled the long plug from the back of his head with the other. Without a doubt, the strangest sensation Axel had ever felt, and it did absolutely nothing to calm his nerves. Soren and Ajax set to undoing the restraints on Axel's hands then his feet. Axel didn't bother waiting for both feet to be released. As soon as his left one was free he leapt out of the chair, and instantly, his still-bound right foot caused him to fall to the floor. As Ajax continued to free Axel's right foot, Soren offered a hand to help Axel up, but Axel pushed it away. He felt so weak, so helpless, but he didn't want to be touched. His right foot was free now too, but he couldn't stand up. He felt sick, like he was going to vomit.

"Calm down, Axel," Soren urged once again. "You have to breathe."

But breathing wasn't a problem. If anything, in fact, Axel was hyperventilating. Between whooping breaths, Axel cried out weakly, "What did you do to me?" he clambered gracelessly against the wall, trying to stand up. The world was spinning around him, "Let me out of here." He was near tears, "I wanna wake up!" he cried feeling more nauseous than ever, "Please let me wake up." With that, he doubled over, vomited on the floor, and passed out.

"You are awake," Soren said softly.

----------

When Axel woke up some hours later, he felt like utter crap. His head was pounding, and he was so hungry it felt as though someone had bored a hole into his stomach with a drill. He slowly sat up and was instantly overwhelmed with head-rush, and for a moment he thought he was going to pass out again. But it passed, and when he could see clearly again, he realized with a fleeting moment of alarm that he wasn't alone. Virulanna was once more sitting next to him; he was in the room he'd first awakened in.

Sighing deeply, he said, "Don't you have anything better to do than hover over me whenever I wake up?"

"Soren told me to watch over you. The way you freaked out earlier, he was afraid you might hurt yourself when you woke up again."

"Where exactly are we? I mean you say we're on a ship, but…"

"Yeah, the_Vigilant_"They just stared at each other for a moment longer before it finally clicked with Virulanna what Axel was trying to ask, "Oh! You mean, what _type_ of ship we're on. Don't worry… we're not on a spaceship or anything."

Axel looked a bit relieved, "Okay, then what type is it? I'd guess a normal ship, but if that were the case I'd be getting very sea-sick right now. As it is I don't feel any movement at all."

"That's because we're at rest," Virulanna sighed and looked towards a wall for a moment, trying to figure out a way to explain things to him, then she returned her gaze. "Soren told you about the sky-searing, right? In the war with the machines?"

"Yeah, something about trying to cut off their power supply."

"Well, it also made the earth's surface very cold. The only place where it's warm enough to support human life is deep underground, near the planet's core. That's where Zion is."

"Zion?" Axel raised his eyebrows.

"The city of freedom. _Our _city," she said with a measure of pride.

"What's this have to do with the ship?

"Well, because the surface is so cold, we mostly go underground, through old sewer-systems and slightly newer tunnels. The _Vigilant_ is a hovercraft that's designed to navigate these underground tunnels."

"Ah… a hovercraft…" Axel started chuckling cynically, "I'm on a hovercraft." He ran a hand through his hair, in the back of his mind he still was surprised by how short it was. "You have any idea how sci-fi that sounds?"

At this point Virulanna started laughing too. "Yeah, that's what I thought too. When Ajax told me that, I felt like I'd fallen into a science fiction movie." Then her tone became much more serious, "Hey, I know this is all very weird at first. Trust me, I've been there. But after a while it gets less weird, so just try and hold on until then. This _is_ real." Then on a completely different note, "I'll bet you're hungry."

At the very thought of food, Axel's stomach rumbled loudly, and he looked down at it almost sheepishly. Virulanna laughed. "I'll take that as a yes."

----------

Lunchtime on the _Vigilant_ was not what Axel was hoping for. Instead of a mess hall buffet of sorts there was simply a dispenser with some sort of white, runny glop in it. He wasn't sure what it was, but when he saw that the others were eating it, he dug into it ravenously. It was bland and had an almost chalky aftertaste that, under other circumstances, probably would have made him gag, but at the moment he didn't care. It was food. That was all that mattered. When the meal was almost over and the bowls nearly empty, conversation began to arise. This had been the first time Axel had even seen Vector or Binary since the chapel. He was a little surprised though. Niobe was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Niobe?" he asked.

"She's not a member of the _Vigilant'_s crew. She's the captain of another ship. The _Logos_," Soren replied.

"Oh… will I ever see her again?"

"I'm sure you will," and then Soren added with a sly look. "If you're feeling up for it."

"What do you mean?" Axel said, noting with a little apprehension the smirks that suddenly appeared on Vector's and Ajax's faces. Binary simply shook her head.

"Remember the plan that Vector had talked to you about back when you were still in the matrix?"

"Yeah… it really exists? I just thought it was a just way of luring me here."

"It does exist… and you're still welcome to take part if you're feeling up for it."

For the first time since he woke up here, Axel actually felt a bit of excitement well up inside of him. Perhaps he really could find a place for himself here in this strange place after all. "Yeah," he said, a smile forming on his lips. "Yeah, I'm feeling up for it."

"You have a lot of training ahead of you if you want to be ready in time."

"Okay," something in Soren's tone made Axel anxious. Training, he wondered. What exactly would they be training him to do? Just the thought sparked even more excitement and the smile turned into a grin. "All right!"

"Do you want to start now?"

There was a moment of silence. Ajax and Vector exchanged glances, Virulanna was smiling, and Binary merely watched Axel expressionlessly. Axel took all this in, feeling awkward as the focus of everyone's attention, but he made his decision quickly. "Definitely."

Soren smiled. "All right then."

----------

A few minutes later, Axel was sitting in the strange chair again, but this time, rather than being afraid, he felt excitement turning his stomach in knots. Adrenaline was pumping through his system, and he felt better than he had in what seemed like ages. They strapped him in again, but he was so focused on his anticipation that he hardly noticed.

"You ready?" Ajax asked, slipping a disk into a nearby computer and picking up the long needle-like plug.

Axel steeled himself for what he knew was coming and nodded briskly. Even though he was ready for it this time, the plug's abrupt entry into his head still made his body jump. This time, rather than waking up in a strange, blank world, he found that his mind was being surged with images and sounds… like he was going through a million martial arts lessons all in the course of a single moment. It was overwhelming… like a mental overload… and yet the rush that came with it was intoxicating. A few moments later it was over, and his eyes opened to the _Vigilant_ again.

"Whoa…" he sighed, breathing heavily. "What a rush!"

Ajax looked at him with a grin on his face. "Great, isn't it?"

"Yeah… "Axel looked around with marveled eyes, "I know karate now!"

"Want to test it?" Soren said even though he could already tell without asking that Axel was eager to try out his new skills.

"Definitely!" Axel replied emphatically.

"All right." A smile formed on Soren's lips too, and he stepped into the other chair. "Let's see what you've got."

----------

When Axel opened his eyes he was standing in a large wooden dojo wearing a gi and facing Soren, who was also wearing a gi. He felt brimming over with confidence, but yet at the same time, he felt a bit uncomfortable being faced against the captain of the ship he now lived on.

"You have learned a great deal from the programs today. You have been trained in all the martial arts. Do you feel confident in your new abilities?"

"Yes," Axel said, not sounding quite so confident as he had been in the real world just moments ago.

"Good," Soren said, getting into a fighting stance, "then show me."

Axel took a deep breath to clear his mind of all except for what he had learned then got into his own stance. Soren merely stood like a statue, waiting for Axel to make the first move. After a brief pause, Axel suddenly lunged at Soren, swing at him repeatedly with his fists. Soren batted the blows aside like they were nothing. After a few moments of this, Soren caught one of Axel's wrists, twirled him around and pinned him to the floor on his stomach in one graceful movement. Axel grunted in frustration and tried to squirm out of Soren's grasp to no avail.

Soren brought his mouth down by Axel's ear. "Having knowledge and having experience are two different things. You have all the knowledge I have, so I _know_ you can hit me if you try hard enough. But since I know I have much more experience than you, you only have to hit me once to win. Let me hit you five times and you lose. This won't count."

That said, he released his hold on Axel's wrist and let him up off the floor to brush himself off. Once again the two retained fighting stances, and once again Soren waited for Axel to make the first move. This time, Axel started with a high roundhouse kick, but Soren grabbed his foot, and spun him towards one of the wooden supports. Rather than allow himself to be smacked into the support, he jumped and kicked off of the beam with the foot Soren wasn't holding and brought the foot towards Soren's head. He missed, but when Soren dodged the blow, his grip on Axel's other foot loosened, and Axel tumbled to the ground, and rolled away from Soren before scrambling to his feet. He had never moved so fast in his life. He wondered if it was because of the training programs or if it was because somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that this dojo didn't actually exist except inside his and Soren's heads. He rushed at Soren again, once more having all his blows batted away easily. Soren snatched his wrist again, but this time Axel was ready for it. He quickly recoiled his arm, pulling Soren closer and lashed out with his other hand. Soren grabbed that one too, pinning both of his arms. Axel struck out with a foot, but Soren brought up his leg and blocked the blow with his shin and then head-butted him, sending Axel sprawling to the floor on his back, groaning and pressing a hand to his face.

"You did much better that time, Axel. But you need to learn to use all of your assets. Anything you _can_ use to beat your opponent you _must_; especially if all other means of defense have been overcome." Soren extended a hand and Axel took it and was hauled back to his feet. "I think you've also noticed by now that you can now move much faster than you used to. This is only the beginning of what this training can offer you. You can jump higher, move faster, run along walls, not get tired… perform feats of agility that you never thought possible."

"Why is that?" Axel asked, out of breath.

"Because the matrix isn't reality. As long as you embrace that knowledge, you can bend the rules of physics."

"Ah," Without further warning, he swung a fist at Soren, who leaped up into the air and did a back-flip, landing ten feet away. Axel could only look at him with wide, unbelieving eyes. "See what I mean?" Soren said, grinning widely.

The two sparred some more, Axel more or less pursuing Soren around the dojo. He felt like he'd have more success trying to hit a cloud. Soren was so fast. Axel backed him up against a wall and then when he tried to hit him, Soren moved out of the way quickly, and he hit the wall instead. Pain shot up his arm and he shook his hand as though doing that would make the pain go away. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Soren moving toward him, but he had no chance to react before he was roundhouse kicked in the stomach. Doubling over painfully, he thought_, that's twice now he's hit me__, and I __have yet to even come close to hitting him once._ Soren gave him no time to recover and came at him with a series of kick, which Axel blocked weakly as he tried to regain his breath. Then, taking a page out of Soren's book, he grabbed one of Soren's legs and pushed him backwards against a support beam. But before he could so much as think about hitting him, Soren hooked his other foot around the back of Axel's knee, causing it to buckle. Axel lost his balance, and Soren shifted his weight so he would come down on top of Axel and pin him to the ground, dealing a sharp jab to the throat as he landed. Axel burst out coughing and brought up both hands to his throat as Soren got off of him. He was starting to feel very frustrated. No matter what Soren might say, it was impossible for Axel to beat him. He may as well try and catch a ray of sunlight in his hand.

----------

Meanwhile, back in the real world the entire crew was gathered around the monitors, watching the fight. It was always interesting watching a new crewmember spar with Captain Soren for the first time. It was a treat they hadn't gotten since Virulanna had been pulled from the matrix four years ago when she was fourteen. Of them, Binary was the only one who'd actually managed to hit Soren during the first sparring match, though Virulanna had come very close. Vector much preferred firearms to melee any day and had been completely crushed during his first spar. Even though none of the _Vigilant_'s current crew had been present for his fight with Soren, it made him feel a bit better finally watching someone else get his butt thoroughly kicked the first time around. Vector chuckled softly. Binary shot him a reproachful look.

"What's so funny?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"He's getting his ass kicked," Vector replied, still chuckling. Binary simply shook her head, hiding the fact that she too was amused.

----------

Soren had Axel pinned against the wall, but at the same time, Axel's hands were clamped firmly on Soren's wrists, keeping them from punching him. Meanwhile, they both kept trying to kick each other and blocking each other's kicks. Finally Axel attempted to head-butt Soren, but Soren moved out of the way and brought up his elbow, catching Axel squarely in the jaw with it; he lost his grip on Soren's wrists and staggered a few steps away. _That's four, __dammit_ he thought to himself with more than a little frustration. In an attempt to take him by surprise, Axel tried to kick Soren again, but he was tired, and the blow was weak and sloppy. Soren grabbed his foot once more and this time promptly kicked the other foot out from underneath of him. Axel landed hard on his back and all the wind was knocked out of him. Soren put a foot on his chest to keep him from getting up as Axel struggled to breathe again.

"That was five. Let go of your inhibitions. This is not the real world. You should not be tired now, because at this moment you are not lying on the floor. You're sitting in a chair, and that's all you've been doing since we started. Sitting in a chair. So why are you tired? Why are you out of breath?" Soren bent down to get closer, "Why aren't you hitting me?"

"You're too fast," Axel panted, "Too strong."

"No, I'm not," Soren said, straightening up and taking his foot off Axel's chest. "Speed and strength hold no sway here. Experience is everything. Learning to let go is everything."

The dojo began to melt from around them into the empty whiteness Axel remembered from the first time he was plugged into the chair. He climbed to a standing position, and as he did so, concrete suddenly formed underneath his feet so quickly it was dizzying.

"Where are we?" he asked, looking around.

"Your second lesson."


	8. The Training

I'm so so sorry I've taken so long to update this. You guys have been so patient with me. Lately I've been writing like crazy trying to make up for it. Been hand-writing it in a notebook I take with me pretty much everywhere, and I've finished chapters 8 and 9. I hope you enjoy! :)

* * *

Axel looked around, squinting at the sudden abundance of sunlight. He and Soren were standing on the roof of a building dozens of stories high. Having such drastic changes in the environment would take some getting used to, Axel imagined. But the environment wasn't the only thing that had changed. Soren's scarlet gi had been replaced by the crimson leather attire Axel had met him in, and once more, Axel was wearing what he'd worn just before he woke up. Axel inched towards the edge of the rooftop and peered over the side. A wave of vertigo made him step away. This was his second test, but what it would entail, he didn't want to know.

"So, uh, lovely view," Axel said nervously.

"Quite so," Soren smiled.

"And why are we up here?"

"We're not," Soren replied cryptically, "We're sitting in chairs."

"You know what I meant."

"I know what you meant, but you must also understand what I mean. There is no view, no rooftop, no city, no drop. We are not standing here. There is no gravity keeping our feet on the concrete because there is no concrete. As soon as you fully understand that you will know that you _can_ jump to the next rooftop."

Axel's eyes widened, "What??" He looked around and saw that the nearest rooftop was over a hundred feet away. "What next rooftop? This is crazy. No way!"

Soren just grinned and without another word he ran to the edge and launched himself into the air. He landed with a hard thud on the distant rooftop, turned around and shouted, "Is it crazy to fly in your dreams?"

Axel just stared, mouth agape, eyes wide.

Ajax watched the scene intently. It was stuff like this that made him wish he'd been born into the matrix like the others. They could leap impossible distances, bend the rules of gravity and physics, and all he got to do was watch. The others gazed at the screens over his shoulder.

"Bet your shoes he won't make it," Vector muttered to no one in particular.

Psh! Yeah, like I was born yesterday," Ajax retorted. "There's no way on God's green earth he's making that." And then almost as an afterthought, "Not that God's earth is very green anymore."

"Aw, come on, guys. Be nice. He might make it," Virulanna added, eyes glued to the screen.

Vector eyed her, 'You on something?"

Ajax glanced at Axel's real body in the chair. The gingers were trembling and his mouth was twitching. His brows were drawn together, and all color had drained from his face. In short, he was a bundle of nerves. Ajax donned a more serious tone. "Just look at the guy, Vir. He's petrified. That means he doesn't think he can make it. If he doesn't think he can make it, he won't make it.

As if on cue, axel's body suddenly jerked in the chair, and he let out a soft grunt. A shadow of concern passed over Virulanna's face.

"And there he goes," Binary commented expressionlessly.

Vector burst out laughing. "One of y'all owes me your shoes."

"I think that would be Virulanna," Ajax murmured as he began entering the command sequence for program shutdown. Moments later Soren and Axel woke up. Soren sat up, smiling, and walked over to Axel, who was just sitting back, wincing and waiting for someone to undo the restraints.

"Well I really sucked at that," Axel muttered, popping his neck stiffly.

"Don't worry. Everyone does the first time. Even I did when I was first introduced to all of this. In time everything will be better."

The next two weeks consisted of intensive training, sparring, and cooperative simulations. During this time, Axel discovered that each of his crew mates had their own range of specialized skills. Soren was good with shotguns. He used them both in range and melee combat with equal proficiency. He was a force to be reckoned with even when he was out of shells as he'd merely turn the length of the gun itself into a weapon. Vector loved automatics. He was very good at sending a wall of bullets at the enemy without ever hitting a friendly. Binary's skill was with hand-to-hand martial arts. She could move so fast she was like a blur sometimes. Virulanna was perfectly content with a pair of handguns. Her favorite was dual-wielding pearl-handled revolvers She was an incredible shot. Axel found that his skill rested in neither fist nor firearm. He took a great liking to knives. Whether to stab, parry or throw, they were like extensions of his own arms. The time of the mission steadily drew near.

In the dark alley stood a lone figure, hidden back among the shadows. He wore dark shades and a sleek overcoat that went nearly to his ankles. The only bit of attire that wasn't entirely black was his black and gold patterned vest.

Five knives were strapped to each side and two more at each hip, all concealed by the coat. For emergencies he had several tiny knives so small they were more like darts up his sleeves. He kept his eyes to the alley's entrance. There was a door and the entrance to another alley between where the man stood and the street. Inside was Binary hacking a major database. The others were guarding the building's other entrances, but Axel had this one. A steady flow of civilians and cars streamed past on the sidewalk and road. It never ceased to amaze him how real it all felt. Suddenly the door burst open and Binary came sprinting out with two cops on her heels, drawing their guns. They all turned away from where Axel was waiting. With a flick of both wrists and a brief glint of light on steel, the two cops dropped like lead, the handles of throwing knives growign out the backs of their necks. Binary shot a grin back over her shoulder.

"Agents are coming," she declared before ducking into the adjoining alley. Axel stepped out of the shadows, bent down to pull the knives out of the cops and continued on after Binary, being sure to keep a distance behind her. He proceeded uickly but quietly and cautiously. Binary was already rounding into the next alley by the time Axel reached the first one. Four more cops took up pursuit behind her. Axel felled the two in back then the two in front before they even realized what was happening. This was why he loved knives. They were quiet and easily took the enemy by surprise.

He continued on to the adjoining alleyway and passed by a homeless bum who watched this all with the mild interest of a drunken stupor. Binary had nearly reached the street and the relative safety of a busy sidewalk when a deafening bang filled the alley. Searing pain spread across Axel's back, and he dropped to the ground, immobilized. Up ahead Binary whirled around to see what had happened. What she saw made her shake her head and continue running. Axel moved his eyes, wanting to know who had gotten the drop on him, but his muscles failed. He was paralyzed. He felt a foot jab his ribs once, then roll him onto his back. Axel finally got a good view of his attacker. An agent. The vagrant was gone. Axel felt fury well within him. He wanted nothing more than to kill this bastard, but all he could do was lay there and stare at the smug grin as the agent leveled his gun at Axel's head and squeezed the trigger.

A loud bang. Everything went white. axel jolted in his chair, eyes wide open as he clawed for the plug in the back of his head. Soren was standing there watching the whole scenario replay. Binary, Vector and Virulanna were waking up too.

"I don't know what just happened, but I'd call it a failure," Vector stated simply.

"I heard gunshots," Virulanna added, "Who died?"

"I did," Axel admitted. "What happened?"

"You let an agent shoot you. That's pretty obvious," Binary stated.

"Yeah, I know, but where the hell did the agent come from? There was no way he could have gotten there without me seeing him."

"You did see him," Soren said ambigiously.

"What? No, I didn't. If I'd seen him--"

"Did you see the vagrant?"

"Well, yes..." Axel looked uncertainly at the others.

"This was the point of the whole simulation. Your final lesson to learn before I'll let you into the actual matrix. Everyone in the matrix, whether it's a vagrant, your boss or your mother... everyone has the potential to be one of them. If they're not one of us, they're an agent."

One of the monitors was showing the simulation. Axel watched as he passed the bum. Almost immediately the man began to convulse and shake. His features contorted in pain and something else. He began to change. A moment passed and the man stood up, but he was no longer a begger. He was an agent, and he was raising his gun to shoot Axel in the back. It was a good thing the simulation was set so that the ammunition only had a tasing effect rather than real bullets or he'd be dead.

Axel turned away, unable to watch the rest. In a low voice he asked, "What happens when you kill them?" But he already knew the answer.

"You kill the person they inhabit," Soren replied.

Tears were forming in Axel's eyes, "Is that what happened to my mother?"

Soren nodded.

"It wasn't your fault she died, Axel," Virulanna added. "It was low of those agents to use your mother to get to you. Blame them."

Axel slammed his fist on the table and took a moment to regroup himself. "Well at least now I know, right?"

Virulanna stepped forward and put a timid hand on his shoulder, comfortingly. He turned towards her, and when she saw his tearful eyes, she pulled him into an embrace. He didn't fight it.

Vector and Binary looked at each other knowingly.

* * *

As I've said, Chapter 9 is already finished. But alas, currently the only format it's saved in, is scrawled in my notebook. I need to transcribe it to WordPad before I can save it here, but it should be up tomorrow. It's very long, and hopefully you'll like it, faithful (and ever so patient) readers :)


	9. The Heist

Aaaand here's chapter nine. All 4,774 words of it. Told you it was huge ;) Enjoy!

* * *

The crew of the _Vigilant_ sat around the mess table that doubled for their conferance table. Ajax was on the floor pointing at a screen displaying the blueprints of the Metropolitan Bank, a very big, well-protected bank.

"First you've got the lobby filled with customers, tellers, and probably security guards. No biggie. We can get past that easily enough. The problem will be getting out. Once you get past the lobby there's a corridor that leads to the vault with a pressure sensitive floor and security cameras. The cameras are no problem, but if even a stray hair touches that floor the alarm _will_ go off, and then you'll really be screwed. If the disc is there like we think... and it is... then agents will be all over that bank like fliles on crap at the first sign of trouble. Now the door to the vault is magnetically sealed. If the power grid is shut off at just the right moment, it should open easily enough, but the thing is you got to cut it at exactly the right moment. Too soon and the place will be swarming with agents before you even get a chance to do anything. Too late and whoever's going in there has a really good chance of setting off an alarm while they're waiting. Once you're in the vault, getting the disc should be easy enough. It's in box 125. Getting out will be hard, but I'm setting up an exit at one of the pay phones in the lobby, so that's as far as you have to go. The crew of the _Logos_ is supposed to be helping with all this, so that makes it just a little easier. For whoever is going to the power station instead of the bank, your exit won't be as close. There is a movie theatre a couple blocks from the station. Your exit is there." Ajax stepped down, and Soren took his place. For a moment he just stood there and looked over his crew one at a time before speaking.

"I cannot express how important this mission is. This disc has the names and descriptions of everyone that has ever been liberated from the matrix. Taking this disc would be the equivalent of wiping us out of the matrix's database and making them start anew in their search for us, which would give us the serious advantage in the war. Binary, you are by far the most agile. I want you to go into the vault. Vector and I will back you up and help you escape. Axel and Virulanna, I want you to take out the power. Be ready to run as soon as the power's back on. Ajax will give the signal. Remember, the timing must be exact. "

Each nodded at his or her own assignment. they'd gone over it a dozen times in varying degrees of detail, but this time it was official. Not a single one of them wasn't at least a little excited. They broke the meeting and headed for the chair room. Axel's heart was pounding as he sat and got ready for Ajax to plug him in. It was no different from any other time, but it was. It was so very different. This was no simulation. He was going back to the world he'd been in for the last nineteen years for the first time since he'd left it nearly a month ago. Ajax brought up the needle-like plug and shoved it into Axel's head. His body jumped involuntarily as his mind was sent spinning into a fake world that felt utterly real.

When he opened his eyes again he was looking on the interior of the cathedral. It was amazing how much had changed since the last time he'd looked on these walls. He'd been a mess then. Now he looked like one of them, all clad in black except the dark gold patterns on his vest and wearing shades. He liked the vest because not only did it offer the only bit of color in his attire, but also it had ten knife-holsters attached to it, five on each side. The long coat did a great job of hiding these and the four knives lining his belt. They all looked at each other to make sure they'd all made it. Soren pulled out his cell phone. Each of them had one, a direct line to Ajax.

"We're in," he said simply then snapped it shut.

They split into two cars before they headed to their respective objectives, Axel and Virulanna in one and Soren, Binary and Vector in the other.

Martin Browning sighed and glanced at his watch. 3:53. Only a little bit more than an hour before he got to go home. He swiveled his eyes long-sufferingly back to the little old lady in front of him. She was telling him a long-winded story of how she'd been overdrawing funds for her gambling problem behind her husband's back but now he was getting wise and she needed to put some back. _I don't care, woman_, Martin thought. _"I'd like to make a deposit," That's all you have to say. That's all you ever have to say. Just give me the money and go your way._ But on and on she went as she always did. She was a regular face in the Metropolitan Bank for which Martin worked as a teller. And she always seemed to come to _him_. He let his eyes go into stare mode then gazed at the clock behind her. Still 3:53. Was time moving at all? Then a small group of three people caught his eye. Normally he wouldn't care but for the way they were dressed. Long coats, sunglasses... _inside_. He couldn't help but to think that you could hide a lot under those coats, including guns. Martin continued to nod politely to the old lady's story, but his eyes were glued to the newcomers. One of them, the one in maroon, stood in line. The other two, both in black, sat in the waiting area. They didn't seem to be making trouble. Martin shrugged it off. The old woman finally got to the point of her coming here, and he deposited her bag of coins and crumpled bills for her. When he gazed back to where the two companions of the bald man in red were waiting, they were gone. _Just your nerves playin with ya, Marty. You really need to go home_.

The powerplant was dark, easy to sneak around in. There were two guards standing at the entrance to the control room talking idly to each other. Virulanna crept out of the shadows, walking softly but looking casual behind one of them. The guard opposite him spotted her immediately and dropped his hand to the butt of his gun.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Whoa down there, cowpoke. Isn't a bit soon to be playing twenty questions? I mean, we've only just met."

The guards looked at her in confusion, but she didn't hesitate. She lept into the air, spinning slightly with her legs extended. Her right foot caught the nearest guard in the face moments before her left foot hit the wall. She pushed off, jetting herself toward the other guard, rotating the other way now. Her left foot connected with his jaw. By the time her feet touched the ground, both guards were out like lightbulbs. She looked back into the shadows and grinned but before she could say anything a voice rang out of the control room. "Freeze! Up against the wall."

She raised her hands and backed up obediantly. Two more guards came out, guns raised. Before they could so much as blink, two glints of light rang silently out of the shadows and pegged each of them in the head. The knives clattered on the ground, having connected with the handles, not the blades. But the force of the throw was enough. The guards hit the ground not long after the knives. Axel stepped quietly out of the shadows and bent down to pick up his weapons. "Where would you be without me?" he asked and winked, stepping into the control room. She smiled slyly and followed him in, prying her phone out of her pocket. She opened it and stuck it to her ear. "Operator, We're in. What do we do now?" As she spoke, Axel looked over the security screens, making sure the guards didn't have any back-up coming. Looked clear. Back on the _Vigilant_, Ajax was staring at the schematics on how to shut down the power grid for the bank. He gave Virulanna step-by-step instructions on how to do it. It was fairly simple. The hardest part was figuring out which grid Metropolitan Bank was part of then figuring out which panel controlled that grid. But Ajax had already done all that. He told her how to find the panel, and then it was just a matter of flipping the switch to cut off all power to that grid. Virulanna's hand hovered over the switch.

"Tell me when, Ajax."

"Not yet," Ajax replied. "The others aren't ready yet."

Soren, Vector and Binary stepped casually into the Metropolitan Bank, and Soren stood in line while the others sat and waited for a moment to take suspicious eyes off of them. Already Bector noticed that one of the tellers, a tweedy-looking bespectacled man helping an elderly woman, was eyeing them warily. He and Binary would have to move when he wasn't looking. Raising supsicions would be very problematic. The suspicious teller finally turned his attention back to his customer. Good. Binary casually stood up and headed for the corridor containing both the restrooms and the vault, and Vector followed, avoiding security cameras in an off-hand way that was almost second-nature.

The ceilings were low. This was good. They treaded the marble floor softly. Up ahead, the restrooms were on the left. The door to the women's bathroom was a mere three feet from the turn the corridor made leading to the vault; all this was just as Ajax said it would be, but it was reassuring to see it in person. A downward-angled camera across from the restrooms swiveled from the marked doors to the corner, but the ceilings were low and there was only so much such a low vantage point could offer a down-facing camera. If someone tall enough, like Vector, were to stand in just exactly the right place, someone small enough, like Binary, could sneak from the ladies' room to the vault without the camera seeing her. Vector's bulk would block the view. This was the plan as Ajax laid it out, and it looked like this time Ajax's plan might actually work. Binary walked several steps ahead of Vector and ducked into the ladies' room like it was urgent. Vector ambled up to the spot and faced the door, giving a long-suffering sigh, knowing full well his body was blocking much of the camera's view but not acting like it. Immediately, Binary poked her head out of the door and looked at Vector. He nodded microscopically, and she darted out and disappeared around the corner much faster than any normal person could have done. Vector shifted his weight to one foot so that he was no longer blocking it, tapping his other foot. A woman came out, hardly sparing him a glance. When he fell in behind her on the way back to the lobby, she didn't notice. Vector just hoped the man behind the camera wouldn't notice she was not the same woman he came with.

Soren was waiting in the lobby, a clipboarded heap of paperwork on his lap. He raised his eyebrows at Vector, and Vector nodded as he took the seat beside his captain.

"It's all on her now," he sighed.

Binary got to the last camera moments after leaving Vector's sight. It was on the wall to her right, staring down the hall to the vault door. She bounded to her left, kicked off the wall, sending herself into a back flip, and allowed her foot to tap the camera, tilting it up towards the ceiling. It never saw her coming. She looked down the hall at the vault, knowing the floor between her and it was pressure sensitive. She sighed, got a running start, and floated off the ground towards a wall, kicked off to the other wall, kicked off, steadily propelling herself down the hall from wall to wall. When she got to the end, she jetted forward and clung to the vault door, feet never touching the ground.

"Now!" Ajax cried into his headphones, eyes glued to the screen.

Virulanna grasped the switch and flipped it down. It made no sound or indication that it did anything. She looked at Axel uncertainly. "Did it work?"

The lights in the bank flickered and went out. The level of light in the lobby didn't change that much because the entire front was made of plate-glass and it was mid-afternoon, but a wave of murmurs swept through the customers anyway. Martin turned to the two men in the lobby that had caught his eye. He still didn't know where the woman had gone, and was it just him or did their surprise seem feigned? He bet the woman was responsible for the black-out. They all were. But then he noticed the restaurant across the street seemed to be out as well. The whole block then? Couldn't have been the woman. They must have had another man or two at the power station, and the woman was breaking in right now. He gasped. The vault! Without power the lock was useless. It was a robbery. He felt a surge of panic. Then electric pain that sent him convulsing briefly. Then nothing.

When the teller turned his eyes back to the two crewmembers of the _Vigilant_, he was no longer Martin Browning the bank teller. He was Jones, Agent of the machines, and he recognized Soren straight away

The corridor went dark for a moment before the back-up generator kicked on. that moment was crucial. Binary kicked against the wall next to the vault door, pulling all her weight backwards and the door swung open. The generator whirred to life, and emergency lights came on with a crisp click. She could hear the lock try to reactivate, but the door was already open. Now for the easy part. Only one box was real. The others were a facade to make this look like a normal bank vault. Number 125. she walked up to it, pulled out a large silenced pistol and shot the lock. Box 125 flew open, and Binary snatched the disc.

An alarm went off.

Agent Jones didn't even bother to get from behind the booth. He didn't need to. He placed his hand on the handle of his nine millimeter, but Soren saw him too, and fingered the shotgun concealed beneath his coat. The agent and the captain drew in unison. Someone, a woman, screamed. They both fired. Soren dropped down sideways, pumping his shotgun. The agent's bullet only just missed him. There was no way that the agent could dodge all of the pellets from Soren's shot. He dropped, a large red hole blooming in his chest. When he hit the ground, he was no longer Agent Jones. Martin Browning's cold, dead eyes gazed up at the ceiling. another teller screamed and hit the alarm. Vector looked concerned, but Soren was calm. "We knew this would happen."

Upon hearing the alarm, Binary's phone was up and out of her pocket in a flash.

"Operator, what's going on? What's the alarm?"

"Nothing you did, but get out of there. Agents have arrived."

Binary cursed and hung up, starting for the door. A man shadowed the entrance. She stopped short. With the only light coming from behind him, she couldn't tell who it was.

"Give me the disc and get out while you can," said a familiar voice, not an agent's.

She stepped towards him, and as he came closer he turned a little towards the light. White lines illuminated the contours of the left side of his face. The black hair, high cheekbones, little goatee. Of course.

"Ghost!" she cried and threw her arms around her brother, showing emotion atypical of her.

"Get out of here, Binary. But be careful. There are agents out there."

She slipped him the disc and slid out around him. in the fray, the agents hadn't noticed him. He could lay low in the bathroom for a while until things cooled down.

A pay phone in the lobby began to ring. Soren and Vector were tempted to leave right then. With so many bystanders around, any attempt to kill the agent with some sense of finality was completely fruitless. He would just body-hop to someone else in the lobby, and while the bystanders were clearing out in fear, many were just frozen by the spectacle. Soren took to shouting that they leave, but this was the unpleasant part about dealing with the matrix-- gunning down people because they could... and would... become agents. Even killing an agent meant they were really killing someone else. They could play mindgames with themselves, try to make like it didn't mean anything, but Soren could never really do that. In the end, enslaved or not, these people were still human beings. They were _not_ the enemy, and the thought of killing them bothered him, even though he knew it had to be done. Vector sent sprays of bullets at bystanders who weren't moving while Soren struggled to keep the agent occupied. Binary came out of the corridor in a dead run, answered the ringing payphone and disappeared. Vector edged towards it and paused long enough to put the phone back on the hook. It rang, he answered and also disappeared. The lights came back on.

After flipping back on the power to the Metropolitan Bank's grid, Virulanna turned to Axe.

"I think it's time we catch a movie," she nearly whispered and started out. Axel nodded and followed several paces behind her, as he'd grown accustomed to doing in simulations. As she passed over the prone guards, he noticed one starting to stand up behind her. The guard was moving slowly, with purpose, but he didn't really look like a guard anymore. Axel's eyes widened. An agent. The agent was leveling his gun at Virulanna, and she was totally unaware that he was even there. Axel ran towards the agent, having no time to pull out his knives, and hopped into the air, scissoring his legs in a series of kicks. He got the agent twice in the back before landing. There was a deafening bang as the agent stumbled forward a couple steps, and Axel could only watch with great dismay as Virulanna fell to the floor. He felt rage well up inside him and reached for the knives at his hips. The agent turned around. It was the same bastard that had taken hold of his mother. But the agent was so fast. It was like he didn't even need time to aim. Axel had his knives halfway out when the agent fired. The bullet trailed through Axel's right hand. He screamed and jerked his hand away, dropping the knive. The pain was incredible, but Axel's adrenaline was in full flow now. He pushed aside the pain. The knife in his left hand was out of its sheath and clashing against the barrel of the agent's gun in time to keep the second shot from hitting him. The impact made sparks fly, but Axel didn't dare throw the knife. Pain aside, he couldn't rely on his right hand to hold off the agent long enough for his left hand to get another knife out. So he and the agent engaged in a strange form of swordplay. Everytime the agent pointed the gun at Axel, Axel slashed it away with his knife and made the knife go wild. Every time Axel got close enough to stab the agent, the agent deflected it with his gun. Every once in a while one would throw in a blow to the other with their free hand... the agent accomplishing this much more frequently than Axel. The adrenaline was flowing freely now, and more than that, Axel was terrified. He might be holding his own for the moment, but he knew the agent would eventually win. He grabbed another knife with his right hand and continued the strange fight dual-wield. He even got the agent across the face, leaving a red line from the left ear to the bridge of the nose. But the victory was short-lived. The agent snarled furiously and grabbed Axel's injured right hand, squeezing it in his left. The pain came rushing back with a vengeance. Axel's knees went weak, and the agent shoved him against the wall. Axel brought his left knife up to deflect the gun as it came to his head, but the blow was weak. The best he could do was hold it back. The weapon-locked stalemate became a checkmate as the agent shifted his angle so the barrel was pointed at Axel's head. _This is it_, he thought. _The end I knew was coming since this fight started_. Having known he was going to die didn't make it any more comforting though. He closed his eyes and waited for the gunshot. But it didn't come. Instead, an agonizing wrench shuddered through his right hand. He felt a minor snap in his wrist and the knife in that hand clattered to the floor. Axel gasped at the new pain that shot up his arm. The agent was toying with him first? He opened his eyes and saw a dim smile on the agent's face.

"If you're going to kill me, kill me!" he cried.

"Oh, I will kill you, Mr. Fairfax, and then I'll kill Ms. Keaty over there while my colleague destroys your captain."

"You're out of bullets," Axel said, stalling for time, and only afterwards, when he remembered the count of shots fired did he realize he was right.

"I know." the grip disappeared from around Axel's disarmed right hand and reappeared around his neck. "But that is why you humans are so pathetic. I don't need a gun to kill you." Without another word, he put an enormous amount of pressure on Axel's neck. Axel started to pry desperately with his wounded hand, and he wanted to bring his left hand in to help. The thought of burying the knife's blade in the agent's arm was quite appealing, but every time he tried, the agent moved the gun to keep him held back. His vision was fading, but a flurry of motion caught his eye. He couldn't tell what it was until the deafening bang. The agent looked confused, then his face began to fizzle with electricity. The pressure on Axel's neck fell away as the agent, no longer the agent but a guard, dropped to the floor, dead. Axel brought his hand to his throat, dropping to one knee and bringing in great shaking gasps of air. Niobe stood behind and a little to one side of where the agent had been. Smoke emitted from the end of the revolver in her hand. She holstered it and bent beside Axel.

"Are you okay?"

"Been better," he replied, his throat and hand hurting.

"You gotta get up. He won't be gone long." She eyed the other guards.

He got up shakily and looked concernedly at Virulanna's prone form. "Is she okay?"

"She's alive. Nothing the medics at Zion can't fix up."

"Zion?" His eyes lit up.

"They've told you about it, right/"

"Yeah, the city at the Earth's core. The last human haven. We're going there?"

"Yeah. After this mission we're to report to General Locke there." She smiled a little.

He bent down beside Virulanna. "Hear that? We're going to Zion. Get up."

One of the guards began to stir. Niobe swore.

"Get up!" Virulanna didn't move. He picked up her small frame and followed Niobe as she started away. He chanced a backwards glance and saw that the guard was now the agent, and he ran even faster. Seven hellish minutes of dodging gunfire as civilians around them kept turning into the agent and finally they reached the theatre. A pay phone was ringing in the lobby near the ramp up to the theatres, and a customer was looking at it curiously, debating whether or not to answer it. Axel got to it first, picked up the phone, and put it to Virulanna's ear. She melted away in his arms. The customer looked shocked. Axel hung up the phone and heard a bang. A split second after that he felt the air of a bullet passing half an inch over his left hand. The gaping customer doubled over, having caught the bullet in the gut, as Axel yanked his hand back hurriedly. He was in no mood to get both hands shot today. Niobe looked around and saw the agent up the ramp where the ticket-taker had been. She took aim and fired, sending him into a blur of movement. The phone rang, and she nodded to axel. He nodded back and answered it.

His right hand and fist were a ball of agony on the end of his arm. This was the real world. Here there was no matrix manipulating his senses, no blanket to cover the pain. here there was just the plain and simple fact tha this hand was shot and his wrist was probably broken. He felt sick, but then he remembered Virulanna. He jumped up from his chair once Ajax unplugged him, cradling his right hand, and rushed to Virulanna's chair. she was still unconscious but breathing.

"Wow, guys," Vector mused, "What the hell happened?"

"We got the crap kicked out of us by an agent," Axel replied a bit irritably. He looked at the other three. Vector and Binary didn't have a scratch on them. Soren hadn't gotten out of his chair yet, but a growing splotch of scarlet on his left pant-leg and a pained look in his eyes indicated not all had gone perfectly at the bank either.

"How'd you guys do?"

"We had an agent too," Vector replied. "A lot of people died because of it." Then a look of curiosity passed over his face. "What did you do with that disc?" He turned to Binary, "You can't have brought it over with you."

"I gave it to Ghsot. He's laying low with it for a while."

A grin spread on Vector's face, "Ah, so the _Logos_ actually did come through for us. I was afraid they'd skipped out on us."

"Nah," Axel shook his head, "They helped. I think both of us would be dead if Captain Niobe hadn't appeared when she did."

"Niobe too," Vector had a look of exaggerated sentiment, "They do ca--"

"Captain, what happened?" Binary interrupted, eyes glued to the stain on Soren's leg.

"It's nothing," he replied, waving itoff, "Bastardagent got off a cheap shot right as I was picking up the phone. It's nothing." He grunted as he stood from his chair and took an ambling step. "See?" Binary looked unconvinced. "They'll take care of it at Zion. Don't worry about it. Vector?"

"Yeah, captain?"

"Take us home."

"Yes, sir!"

"I'm gonna take a look a t Virulanna and Axel, then I'll send Axel up to watch you. Teach him how to drive this thing. You never know when he might need to."

Vector nodded and headed off.

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As always, reviews are very very appreciated :)


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